


Oh, Baby Baby

by serenelystrange



Category: Leverage
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Humor, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29671737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenelystrange/pseuds/serenelystrange
Summary: Accidental Baby Acquisition, OT3 style.Really, this is just an excuse to give these lovable idiots a child. Please enjoy the fluff!For Miss_Bubblegum - Thank you for participating in the Leverage Secret Santa Exchange this year!
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25
Collections: Leverage Secret Santa Exchange (Mod Gifts)





	Oh, Baby Baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss_Bubblegum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Bubblegum/gifts).



Nate opens the door to the office at the sudden knocking, looking both ways of the hallway when he doesn’t see anyone. He takes a step forward, only to be stopped by his foot jamming against something solid. He looks down, a thoughtful frown on his face, before leaning back into the office and shouting.

“Eliot!”

The others all turn toward the door when they hear him, confused by the sudden shouting.

“What?” Eliot asks, getting up from his seat on the couch to investigate whatever Nate is peering at in the hallway.

“Where were you…” Nate trails off, “maybe fifteen months ago?”

“What?” Eliot says again, agitation creeping into his voice at Nate’s cryptic tone.

Nate swings back into the office then, turning with a dramatic flair to show Eliot the baby carrier in his arms, a chubby baby with bright blue eyes looking up at them from its padded seat.

“The fuck?” Eliot says, staring at the baby with a look of shock on his face.

“The fuck, indeed,” Nate says, nodding in agreement.

He locks the door behind him, it’s bound to be a long day.

“Oh, she’s darling,” Sophie says, cooing at the baby in the carrier.

“Who’d you knock up?” Parker asks, walking around a stock-still Eliot to check the baby out from where they’ve placed the carrier on the coffee table.

“Why is it automatically me?” Eliot asks, scoffing. “Hardison could have knocked someone up a year ago!”

Hardison crowds in next to Parker, looking down at the milky white skin and golden brown hair of the baby girl in front of them. He looks over at Eliot and quirks a brow, gesturing to his own dark skin and then back at the baby.

“Unlikely.”

Parker snorts in laughter beside him, and even Sophie snickers slightly.

“You know,” Sophie says suddenly, straightening up and giving Nate an impressively cool look. “Men can procreate well into their elder years, physiologically.”

Nate looks over at her, eyes wide with disbelief.

“You think I did this?” he asks, waving a hand at the baby.

Sophie narrows her eyes and tilts her head in thought.

“I think that you technically would be able to. And that we weren’t technically together about a year ago.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nate says, groaning. He turns to Hardison.

“What do you know about Paternity tests?” he asks.

Hardison grins.

Getting the samples into a nearby lab is laughably easy, Hardison able to hack into the system and move their pseudonym’d kit to the front of the line. Within a few hours, he has the results in his email, and everyone has gathered once more in the office.

“Now I know how Maury must feel,” Hardison says, looking out at the rest of his team.

Nate is sitting in his favorite chair, looking bored with the whole thing, clearly ready for it to be over. Sophie stands beside him, leaning against the back of chair. Eliot and Parker are on the couch, Parker looking amused and Eliot looking vaguely nervous.

“Ok!” Hardison says, scrolling through the email with a painstakingly slow dramatic flair. “In the case of… possibly 6 month or so old… Unknown Baby Girl… Nate, you are… NOT the father!”

“Thank you!” Nate says, huffing with satisfaction and settling back in his chair, now looking at Eliot.

“Get on with it,” Eliot says, glaring up at Hardison.

“Eliot Spencer. You are….” Hardison trails off teasingly… “Also NOT the father!”

Eliot lets go of the breath he’d been holding, and lets his ridged shoulder slump with relief.

“I’m also not the father,” Hardison says. “Just for, you know, scientific accuracy.”

“Then who does she belong to?” Parker wonders out loud, looking at the now sleeping baby on the couch between her and Eliot.

“And why on earth was she left with us?” Sophie asks.

“Can you run her dna in the system and see if any matches pull up?” Nate asks Hardison.

Hardison nods.

“Already working on it. But there are limits even to my power. It’ll probably take a day to run through every database I have access to. Which is a lot of them.”

“What do we do with her in the meantime?” Parker asks.

“We could just bring her to the hospital, or the fire station,” Nate says. “They have safe haven laws, they shouldn’t ask too many questions.”

Parker and Hardison share a look, no doubt their respective experiences with the foster care system running through their heads.

“Maybe we should just wait and see if we can track down her mom,” Parker says. “So we can at least talk to her.”

“The cameras in the hall aren’t very helpful,” Hardison adds, pulling up the image for them to see on the monitor. “Whoever that is covered their face up pretty well. I can’t even tell age or sex or anything besides a vague height.”

“We should give it the day,” Eliot says, nodding towards Parker. “If we can’t find a match in the systems and aren’t able to find her family, we can bring her to the hospital.”

“And you’re going to babysit?” Nate asks, giving Eliot a dubious look.

Eliot shrugs. “I grew up with lots of cousins,” he says. “I can handle a baby for one night.”

“I can help,” Hardison offers.

“Me, too,” Parker says.

“Well, then,” Sophie says. “Mazel Tov on your new bundle of joy.”

“Three parents,” Nate muses. “How progressive.”

They stop at a store to get diapers and baby formula and food, as well as a pack of onesies since the baby only had the outfit she was wearing. Luckily, the weather was warm, and she had a blanket tucked into her carrier, but still only the one outfit. They also get a pop up crib that they hope to return the next day.

“Aren’t you sweet?” the cashier coos as the baby as they check out. She waves her fingers at the baby, who babbles back at her.

“What’s her name?” the cashier asks Eliot, who is pushing the shopping cart that the baby’s carrier is locked into.

“Uhh,” Eliot says, freezing.

The cashier, a middle aged woman with copper colored hair, gives him a dubious look.

“Penny!” Hardison says, moving to sidle up next to Eliot and throw an arm around his shoulders before giving the cashier a conspiring look.

“Daddy here hasn’t been getting much sleep lately,” he explains. “Baby sleep regression, you know. It’s a hard phase.”

The cashier looks scandalized, but not for the reason Hardison expects.

“And why isn’t your other daddy helping out?” she asks the baby, glaring up at Hardison.

“He’s been busy taking care of me,” Parker jumps in, giving the cashier her most pitiful look. “We’re expecting baby number two.. and I’ve just been so sick.”

“You..” the cashier trails off, looking between the three of them with no shortage of confusion. “All three of you?”

“Apparently,” Eliot says, glaring at Hardison when the other man nudges him in the ribs with his elbow.

“How…progressive,” the cashier says, giving them a polite smile.

“So people keep saying,” Hardison replies, giving her his best smile back.

“That will be $145.18,” the cashier says.

Eliot hands her two hundred dollar bills before tossing the bags into the cart and hurriedly walking away.

The cashier hands the change and receipt to an amused looking Hardison, who just continues to smile at her pleasantly, practically daring her to say anything untoward.

“Good luck,” the woman says, looking relieved when new customers move up behind Parker and Hardison in the line. “You all have a nice day, now.”

Parker and Hardison make their way out of the store, managing to get almost back to the van before dissolving into laughter.

“I’m just saying,” Eliot rants later. “Our family dynamic is none of some stranger’s business. So what if babygirl has three parents?”

He’s supposedly walking with the baby to lull her to sleep after she’s been fed and changed, but really he’s just pacing in annoyance.

“She’s not even really ours,” Parker points out.

“And also, we aren’t actually dating,” Hardison adds. “Sure, we’ve had like…a lot of sex. But we aren’t actually a family with a baby.”

“Well we could be,” Eliot says, grumpily. “Some random cashier doesn’t get to judge us for that.”

“Can I hold her?” Hardison asks, wanting Eliot to stop pacing before he gives himself an anxiety attack.

Eliot nods begrudgingly and stops pacing, handing over the baby to Hardison, who is sitting in an armchair in Eliot’s livingroom.

“Hi, baby,” Hardison says to her. She babbles some nonsensical words back at him, smacking her little hand into his face with emphasis.

“Is that so?” Hardison asks, looking at her with mock seriousness. “That’s a good point, I never thought about that.”

“What’s she talking about?” Parker asks, playing along.

“She has some very strong opinions of the current season of The Bachelor,” Hardison says, looking back down at the baby as if listening again. “Apparently Elena is a two-timing ho.”

Parker laughs at that, and Eliot just groans.

Once the baby, Penny for the time being, is fast asleep, Eliot comes back out to the living room and joins Parker and Hardison on the couch.

“Fatherhood suits you,” Hardison says, sliding closer to Eliot on the couch, Parker doing the same thing on Eliot’s other side.

Eliot smirks.

“That get you hot?” he asks Hardison.

“Maybe,” Hardison shrugs easily, unashamed.

“It’s sweet,” Parker says, moving her hand to run up Eliot’s thigh enticingly.

“Fuck,” Eliot says, swallowing hard as Parker gets his fly undone and Hardison gets his hand under Eliot’s t-shirt, skin flaming hot against his in the best way.

“That’s the idea,” Hardison says, taking Eliot’s lips in a kiss.

They don’t talk for a long while after that.

The next day, after Hardison’s programs have searched every database he has, they are still unable to find a match for baby Penny.

The drive to the hospital is a somber one, Parker and Hardison accompanying Eliot while Nate and Sophie had chosen to stay at the office.

“I don’t want to let her go,” Eliot admits in a quiet voice.

He’s sitting in the back of their most nondescript sedan, Penny’s carrier buckled in next to him. She looks up at him and gives him a gummy mouthed smile.

Parker and Hardison exchange a look in the front seat.

“I mean, you don’t have to,” Hardison says, gently. “I can make it so she’s yours, nobody would be able to prove otherwise.”

Eliot shakes his head minutely, smiling sadly.

“It’s too dangerous,” he says. “Our jobs.”

“We’d keep her safe,” Parker says, voice surprisingly vehement.

Eliot looks up at that, into Parker’s fierce hazel eyes, and sees a million different ways that it could end in an instant.

“She could be ours,” he says, looking between them with hopeful eyes.

Hardison pulls off to the side of the road and puts the car in park, grateful they are still in a quiet residential area.

“That’s a big jump from our whole friends with benefits thing,” he says, carefully. “Do you really want to be in a relationship with us? Raise a baby with us? We’d be connected for life, no matter what else happens.”

“We already are,” Parker says, smacking Hardison on the shoulder for putting doubt into Eliot’s mind.

Eliot laughs at that, because damn it if she isn’t right.

“You ready to be a mama?” he asks Parker.

“Not remotely,” Parker says, grinning widely at him.

“This is insane,” Hardison says, but he’s smiling now too, a thousand plans running through his head.

“We’ll make it work,” Parker says, waving her fingers at Penny who tries her best to eat them, with no luck.

“Yeah, I think we will,’ Eliot says, running a hand over Penny’s soft baby hair.

Hardison turns the car on and around, and drives the speed limit all the way home.

THE END


End file.
